Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-t6hkb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-12T23:57:03.368Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - Making Revolution in Twentieth-Century China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2012

Timothy Cheek
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia, Vancouver
Get access

Summary

With our several thousand years of accumulated ailments, where everything is contrary to the needs of the times, if we wish to change what is unsuitable and achieve what is suitable, we must overturn things from the foundations, clean things out thoroughly. Alas! Alas! This is the task of Revolution [English in original] (what the Japanese call kakumei [Chinese: geming] …). It is the one and only way to save China today.

Liang Qichao, “Explaining ‘ge,’” 1903

Why are Chinese like a sheet of loose sand? What makes them like a sheet of loose sand? It is because there is too much individual freedom. Because Chinese have too much freedom, therefore China needs a revolution.… Because we are like a sheet of loose sand, foreign imperialism has invaded, we have been oppressed by the commercial warfare of the great powers, and we have been unable to resist. If we are to resist foreign oppression in the future, we must overcome individual freedom and join together as a firm unit, just as one adds water and cement to loose gravel to produce something as solid as a rock.

Sun Yat-sen, “Three Principles of the People,” 1924

Revolution is not a dinner party, or literary composition, or painting, or embroidery. It cannot be done so delicately, so gentlemanly, and so “gently, kindly, politely, plainly, and modestly.” Revolution is an insurrection, the violent action of one class overthrowing the power of another.

Mao Zedong, “Report on an Investigation of the Peasant Movement in Hunan,” 1927
Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Rawlinson, John, China's Struggle for Naval Development, 1839–1895 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schrecker, John E., Imperialism and Chinese Nationalism: Germany in Shantung (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ssu-yu, Teng and Fairbank, John K., eds., China's Response to the West: A Documentary Survey, 1838–1923 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979), p. 152
Kwong, Luke, A Mosaic of the Hundred Days: Personalities, Politics and Ideas of 1898 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Esherick, Joseph W., Reform and Revolution in China: The 1911 Revolution in Hunan and Hubei (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), pp. 11–19Google Scholar
Esherick, Joseph W., The Origins of the Boxer Uprising (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987)Google Scholar
Xiang, Lanxin, The Origins of the Boxer War: A Multinational Study (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003)Google Scholar
Reynolds, R., China, 1898–1912: The Xinzheng Revolution and Japan (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Council of East Asian Studies, 1993)Google Scholar
Powell, Ralph L., The Rise of Chinese Military Power, 1895–1912 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1955)Google Scholar
Fung, Edmund S. K., The Military Dimension of the Chinese Revolution: The New Army and Its Role in the Revolution of 1911 (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada: University of British Columbia Press, 1980)Google Scholar
Sutton, Donald S., Provincial Militarism and the Chinese Republic: The Yunnan Army, 1905–25 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1980)Google Scholar
Ayers, William, Chang Chih-tung and Educational Reform in China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, Council on East Asian Studies, 1971)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elman, Benjamin A., A Cultural History of Civil Examinations in Late Imperial China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000)Google Scholar
Abe, Hiroshi, “Borrowing from Japan: China's First Modern Educational System,” in Hayhoe, Ruth and Bastid, Marianne, eds., China's Education and the Industrialized World: Studies in Cultural Transfer (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1987), pp. 57–80Google Scholar
Bailey, Paul John, Reform the People: Changing Attitudes Towards Popular Education in Early Twentieth-century China (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1990)Google Scholar
Judge, Joan, Print and Politics: “Shibao” and the Culture of Reform in Late Qing China (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996)Google Scholar
Mittler, Barbara, A Newspaper for China: Power, Identity, and Change in Shanghai's News Media, 1872–1912 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, Asia Center, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keishū, Sanetō, Chūgokujin Nihon Ryūgaku shi [A History of Chinese Students in Japan] (Tokyo, 1970)Google Scholar
Pusey, James Reeve, China and Charles Darwin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, Council on East Asian Studies, 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chan, Wellington, Merchants, Mandarins and Modern Enterprise in Late Ch'ing China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feuerwerker, Albert, “Economic Trends in the late Ch'ing Empire, 1870–1911,” in Fairbank, John K. and Liu, Kwang-ching, eds., The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 11: The Late Ch'ing, 1800–1911, Part 2 (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1980), pp. 1–69Google Scholar
Heping, Yu, Shanghui yu Zhongguo zaoqi xiandaihua [Chambers of Commerce and China's Early Modernization] (Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1993)Google Scholar
Meienberger, Norbert, The Emergence of Constitutional Government in China (1905–1908): The Concept Sanctioned by the Empress Dowager Tz'u-hsi (Bern: P. Lang, 1980)Google Scholar
Thompson, Roger R., China's Local Councils in the Age of Constitutional Reform, 1898–1911 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, Council on East Asian Studies, 1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pengyuan, Zhang, Lixian pai yu xinhai geming [The Constitutionalists and the 1911 Revolution] (Taipei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan jindaishi yanjiusuo, 1969)Google Scholar
Bary, William Theodore and Lufrano, Richard, Sources of the Chinese Tradition, 2d ed., Vol. 2: From 1600 Through the Twentieth Century (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000), p. 291Google Scholar
Levenson, Joseph R., Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and the Mind of Modern China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1953)Google Scholar
Hao, Chang, Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and Intellectual Transition in China, 1890–1907 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971)Google Scholar
Huang, Philip C. C., Liang Ch'i-ch'ao and Modern Chinese Liberalism (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1972)Google Scholar
Tang, Xiaobing, Global Space and the Nationalist Discourse of Modernity: The Historical Thinking of Liang Qichao (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996)Google Scholar
Jung, Tsou (Zou Rong), The Revolutionary Army: A Chinese Nationalist Tract of 1903, trans. by Lust, John (Paris: Mouton, 1968), pp. 58–59Google Scholar
Jianhua, Chen, “Geming” de xiandaixing – Zhongguo geming huayu kaozheng [The Modernity of “Geming” – An Inquiry into the Chinese Discourse on Revolution] (Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 2000), pp. 1–18Google Scholar
Schiffrin, Harold Z., Sun Yat-sen and the Origins of the Chinese Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968)Google Scholar
Young, Ernest P., The Presidency of Yuan Shih-k'ai: Liberalism and Dictatorship in Early Republican China (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1977)Google Scholar
Arrison, Henrietta, The Making of the Republican Citizen: Political Ceremonies and Symbols in China, 1911–1929 (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 14–92Google Scholar
Sheridan, James, Chinese Warlord: The Career of Feng Yü-hsiang (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966)Google Scholar
Pye, Lucian W., Warlord Politics: Conflict and Coalition in the Modernization of Republican China (New York: Praeger, 1971)Google Scholar
McCord, Edward A., The Power of the Gun: The Emergence of Modern Chinese Warlordism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993)Google Scholar
Nathan, Andrew, Peking Politics, 1918–1923: Factionalism and the Failure of Constitutionalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976)Google Scholar
Tse-tsung, Chow, The May Fourth Movement: Intellectual Revolution in Modern China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960), pp. 84–170Google Scholar
Weston, Timothy, The Power of Position: Beijing University, Intellectuals and Chinese Political Culture, 1898–1912 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004)Google Scholar
Cong, Xiaoping, Teachers' Schools and the Making of the Modern Chinese Nation-State, 1897–1937 (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada: UBC Press, 2007)Google Scholar
Jui, Li, The Early Revolutionary Activities of Comrade Mao Tse-tung, trans. by Sariti, Anthony W. (White Plains, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1977), pp. 15–21Google Scholar
Zarrow, Peter, Anarchism and Chinese Political Culture (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990)Google Scholar
Dirlik, Arif, Anarchism and the Chinese Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991)Google Scholar
Schwarcz, Vera, The Chinese Enlightenment: Intellectuals and the Legacy of the May Fourth Movement of 1919 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), pp. 12–145Google Scholar
Sun, E-tu Zen, “The Growth of the Academic Community, 1912–1949,” in Fairbank, John K. and Feuerwerker, Albert, eds., The Cambridge History of China, Vol. 13: Republican China, 1912–1929, Part 2 (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1986)Google Scholar
Grieder, Jerome B., Intellectuals and the State in Modern China: A Narrative History (New York: Free Press, 1981)Google Scholar
Whiting, Allen S., Soviet Policies in China, 1917–1924 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1954)Google Scholar
Pantsov, Alexander, The Bolsheviks and the Chinese Revolution, 1919–1927 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000)Google Scholar
Yat-sen, Sun, San Min Chu I: The Three Principles of the People, trans. by Price, Frank W. (Taipei: China Publishing Company
Wilbur, C. Martin, The Nationalist Revolution in China, 1923–1928 (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1984)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilbur, C. Martin and How, Julie Lien-ying, Missionaries of Revolution: Soviet Advisers and Nationalist China, 1920–1927 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meisner, Maurice, Li Ta-chao and the Origins of Chinese Marxism (New York: Atheneum, 1977)Google Scholar
Saich, Tony, The Origins of the First United Front in China: The Role of Sneevliet (Alias Maring) (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1991), p. 50Google Scholar
Ven, Hans J., From Friend to Comrade: The Founding of the Chinese Communist Party, 1920–1927 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991)Google Scholar
Dirlik, Arif, The Origins of Chinese Communism (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1989)Google Scholar
Schwartz, Benjamin, Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1951)Google Scholar
Wilbur, C. Martin, Sun Yat-sen: Frustrated Patriot (New York: Columbia University Press, 1976), pp. 137–138Google Scholar
Chesneaux, Jean, The Chinese Labor Movement, 1919–1927, trans. by Wright, H. M. (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1968)Google Scholar
Perry, Elizabeth J., Shanghai on Strike: The Politics of Chinese Labor (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993)Google Scholar
Clifford, Nicholas R., Spoilt Children of Empire: Westerners in Shanghai and the Chinese Revolution of the 1920s (Hanover, NH: Middlebury College Press, 1991)Google Scholar
Galbiati, Fernando, P'eng P'ai and the Hai-Lu-Feng Soviet (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1985)Google Scholar
Hofheinz, Roy, The Broken Wave: The Chinese Communist Peasant Movement, 1922–1928 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971)Google Scholar
McDonald, Angus W., The Urban Origins of Rural Revolution: Elites and Masses in Hunan Province, China, 1911–1927 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978)Google Scholar
Isaacs, Harold, The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1961)Google Scholar
Jordan, Donald, The Northern Expedition: China's National Revolution of 1926–1928 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1976)Google Scholar
Rowe, William T., Crimson Rain: Seven Centuries of Violence in a Chinese County (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007)Google Scholar
Schoppa, R. Keith, Blood Road: The Mystery of Shen Dingyi in Revolutionary China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995)Google Scholar
Geisert, Bradley K., Radicalism and Its Demise: The Chinese Nationalist Party, Factionalism, and Local Elites in Jiangsu Province, 1924–1931 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, Center for Chinese Studies, 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fewsmith, Joseph, Party, State and Local Elites in Republican China: Merchant Organizations and Politics in Shanghai, 1890–1930 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1985)Google Scholar
Moore, Barrington, Jr., Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Lord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 1967)Google Scholar
Wolf, Eric, Peasant Wars of the Twentieth Century (New York: Harper & Row, 1969)Google Scholar
Hofheinz, Roy, “The Ecology of Chinese Communist Success: Rural Influence Patterns, 1923–45,” in Barnett, A. Doak, ed., Chinese Communist Politics in Action (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1969)Google Scholar
Averill, Stephen C., Revolution in the Highlands: China's Jinggangshan Base Area (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006)Google Scholar
Snow, Edgar, Red Star Over China (New York: Grove Press, 1968)Google Scholar
Salisbury, Harrison E., The Long March: The Untold Story (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1985)Google Scholar
Yang, Benjamin, From Revolution to Politics: Chinese Communists on the Long March (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990)Google Scholar
Wakeman, Frederic, Jr., “A Revisionist View of the Nanjing Decade: Confucian Fascism,” The China Quarterly 150 (June 1997), pp. 395–432CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rawski, Thomas G., Economic Growth in Prewar China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989)Google Scholar
Kirby, William C., Germany and Republican China (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1984)Google Scholar
Lee, Leo Ou-fan, Shanghai Modern: The Flowering of a New Urban Culture in China, 1930–1945 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999)Google Scholar
Eastman, Lloyd, The Abortive Revolution: China under Nationalist Rule, 1927–1937 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coble, Parks, Facing Japan: Chinese Politics and Japanese Imperialism, 1931–1937 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, Council on East Asian Studies, 1991)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Slyke, Lyman P., Enemies and Friends: The United Front in Chinese Communist History (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1967)Google Scholar
Israel, John, Student Nationalism in China, 1927–1937 (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1966)Google Scholar
Chen, Yung-fa, Making Revolution: The Communist Movement in Eastern and Central China, 1937–1945 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986)Google Scholar
Wou, Odoric Y. K., Mobilizing the Masses: Building Revolution in Henan (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1994)Google Scholar
Goodman, David S. G., Social and Political Change in Revolutionary China (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000)Google Scholar
Johnson, Chalmers A., Peasant Nationalism and Communist Power: The Emergence of Revolutionary China, 1937–1945 (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1962)Google Scholar
Selden, Mark, The Yenan Way in Revolutionary China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971)Google Scholar
Kataoka, Tetsuya, Resistance and Revolution in China: The Communists and the Second United Front (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974)Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×